SYDNEY showed it has the depth to get the job done without Chloe Molloy after overcoming a West Coast outfit battling with its own gun midfielder/forward Ella Roberts being a late out. As the two sides duked it out in what could be a finals-shaping match, the Swans took away the four points with a 17-point win at Henson Park.

Sydney coach Scott Gowans said he was “obviously very happy” with the win, especially given they lost Cynthia Hamilton to injury in the game.

“It was really important that we came out and pulled all the levers that we needed to pull to get the game done,” he said. “West Coast threw a few things at us and we were able to counteract that pretty well I thought and that’s been a bit of a growth for us this year so I’m really pleased with that.”

Despite Roberts being a late out, Gowans said nothing changed from a midfield plan perspective and that while it was “unfortunate” for West Coast, the availability stakes were “fully in their (Eagles) favour” given the Swans were without Molloy, Sofia Hurley and then Hamilton.

Replacing Molloy as the most damaging forward on the ground was experienced tall Rebecca Privitelli who wound back the clock with three goals from nine disposals and three marks in a critical performance.

“She’s so good, I mean what a team player,” Gowans said. “She played scrimmage and it must be so hard for an experienced player to do that. She just held the faith, helped others, she encourages people at scrimmages, training’s been amazing.

“It’s just that we’ve gone a different way with our forward setup, but late in the week particularly playing West Coast with the way West Coast play, we thought we needed two talls and the choice to play Priv was a pretty easy one because of the form that she maintained.

“It’s probably a good lesson for the rest of the group that as you get on in your career, there’s a role for you to play, you might not like the role but there’s a role and you never know when the time will come and I literally thought that it might have been the end for her a few weeks ago but she hasn’t blinked an eyelid, she’s just kept at it, and she just gets the result, credit to her.”

Privitelli was well supported by second-year talent Holly Cooper who booted two goals from 10 disposals to be the other multiple goalkicker on the ground in the victory.

“She doesn’t get a lot of the footy at times, but when she does she’s very damaging, and then just her pressure around the ground was great,” Gowans said. “I think we ended up with 27 forward half turnovers which is how we’d thought we’d win the game and Holly was a big part of that.

“She’s just an important little cog in our forwardline. we haven’t thrown her in the midfield too much this year, but I think that’s where her next level of development is and we may have a look at that over the next few weeks as well.”

While the temptation to play Molloy might be strong, Gowans said the decision to leave the star out was a combination of both backing in the squad, and not bringing in underdone players to the match.

“I said to Chloe that I’m happy for her to make the decision, and I’m just mindful if she was anything other than 90 per cent sure then we wouldn’t risk it,” Gowans said. “Not from the perspective of keeping her for next week or the week after, but just from the fact that we’ve got a bit of a policy that we have to trust the squad, we have to trust what we’ve got in numbers in the squad and positions, we talked about being versatile.

“It’s no good if we think its a Mon Ham or a Chloe Molloy covering that up and making them play with injections and things like that. We just made the choice and Chloe came to me and said ‘I’m really not comfortable’ and that was it for me. I just said ‘absolutely let’s just not playing you’.”

Sydney sits ninth on the AFLW ladder with a virtual elimination final against Essendon in the last round. If the Swans can beat the Bombers and either Fremantle defeats the Crows, West Coast loses to Carlton or St Kilda loses to the Western Bulldogs, the Swans will play finals.